Sunday, March 10, 2013

The Damage To Israel by Haaretz Error and Bias

Within Israel, Haaretz is a considered a small and minor newspaper that has a readership of less than 6% of the public. Internationally, Haaretz’s readership is still not at the level of publications such as the Jerusalem Post and Ynet, but it fares much better than it does domestically. However, Haaretz (English edition) manages to be one of the most influential voices of Israel.

The key to Haaetz's "success is the nature of its international audience -- and the way Haaretz caters to it:

Haaretz’s audience includes many journalists and opinion makers from different parts of the world. As a result of this, when Haaretz reports a controversial story, the tone/message/thesis of the original article (by Haaretz) has a huge influence on the type of opinion journalists from abroad will take on that issue. Unfortunately, many stories on Haaretz are over-sensationalized and highly misleading. When these types of articles are displayed, journalists from all over the world are quick to spread the “controversial news” to their local region.

Three recent cases of Haaretz jumping the gun to publich negative -- and incorrect -- stories about Israel:

Haaretz blindly reported that Israel was forcing contraception on Ethiopian Jews. The article was proved to be completely incorrect and Haaretz issued a partial retraction.

Gideon Levy erroneously reported that Israelis overwhelmingly supported an apartheid style state, a story that was then reprinted in prominent newspapers such as Canada’s The Globe and Mail, Britain’s The Guardian and The Independent and Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald -- before being proven to be incorrect.

The harm of Haaretz mis-reporting is not ameliorated by its belated corrections and admissions of error.
By jumping to present the most controversial and anti-Israel stories, the harm Haaretz does to Israel is immeasurable.

Hat tip: GS

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